Nice! You are officially famous now, haha.
On another note, I have a question about caucuses. I did not want to start a vanity, so I’ll try asking here...
I have tried reading through a description online, but I have a hard time understanding exactly how they (caucuses/caucui/whatever) work. Could you (or anyone) please explain, or link to an explanation, of how exactly it is that they work. If it just like an exclusive club voting or what? I know it differs from a ballot box election, but I’ve never been able to participate in one.
Any registered voter can participate in a caucus. A voter attends the caucus for their district/township. Each voter is given one ballot, and the ballots are then collected at a certain point in the caucus. Ballots are counted and reported to the State Party. It’s a non-binding count of who people are leaning towards for President. Other party business is also conducted at the caucus, such as nominating delegates, party committee chairmen, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucus
Its basically a group discussion...one group per candidate. each group nominates a spokesperson and that spokesperson tries to convince members of opposing groups to change groups. This is how I remember it anyway.
These are precinct caucuses.
The meeting starts with a temporary chairman, selected before the meeting by the state party. Usually someone who served previously as one of the two precinct chairmen.
The first order of business is to elect two precinct chairman to two year terms. In addition to running the party organization in the precinct for that time, they also serve on the county party committee.
Once that is done they debate and vote on platform planks.
Then they elect delegates to the county convention, some of whom will be elected at the county level to go on as delegates to the congressional district caucus and the state convention. The number to be chosen is set beforehand by the party.
Which leaves the part of the meeting most folks know about, which is nominations for president. Representatives for each candidate speak to the group about their choice, and then a straw vote is taken. This is a non-binding vote which in fact determines nothing except who gets the good PR heading into New Hampshire. The totals are reported via phone to the state party, who then is supposed to tell the breathlessly waiting world the outcome.
At least that’s how it always used to work back in the days when I served as a precinct chairman, a delegate to all the conventions, and a member of the state central committee.
One last note: the state party did NOT report all of the votes for president in 2008. Alan Keyes was blackballed, and though he received votes all over the state in spite of that, they made no provision for his votes to be reported or tallied.
I hope that helps you understand the process better.